Digidesign has announced Smack, a new professional compressor/limiter plug-in designed specifically for music applications. Smack features three compression modes, unique compression ratios, and harmonic distortion ideally suited for achieving a wide range of sonic variations and colorations. Additionally, the plug-in supports side-chain processing, multi-channel track types, and the full range of ProTools sample rates and plug-in formats.

Smack for Pro Tools HD & HD accel costs $595, and Smack LE (for Pro Tools LE) costs $395.

Synthtopia has published a set of Garageband Tips from author Jeff Tolbert. Many of these suggestions are taken from his book, Take Control of Making Music with GarageBand .

You Software Inc. is offering Mac iTunes music lovers a free download of You Control:iTunes, the custom menu tool for Mac OS X that lets you control iTunes from the Mac OS X menu bar. You Control iTunes is a custom menu utility for Mac OS X that gives you full control over iTunes even when you are not in iTunes. With You Control:iTunes you can take control of iTunes from any menu or customized set of hot keys that you define. Pause, play, rewind or skip any song from within any application. You Control:iTunes lets you set hot keys to select and adjust any or all of the iTunes controls including Next or Previous Track, Play, Pause and even the Volume.

You Control:iTunes is a free download.

Griffin has just announced a new amazing (!) product : the PodPod. The soft foam Griffin PodPod slips into any auto cup holder and provides a safe secure ride for any iPod or iPod mini. It also places the iPod in comfortable reach for easy adjustment and perfect placement for the iPod or iPod mini with an iTrip on top.

The PodPod will ship next month for $9.99 and is being shown this week at Apple Expo Paris.

The Reason Drum Kits Refill is a very realistic and detailed drum sounds library for Reason with 60 drumkits made up from about 10.000 samples. The use of 70 layers per note – velocity variation, mic placement – ensures you to never trig the same sample in a pattern from a midi controller.

This « Refill » allows you to add some more « human » drums to your compositions.